Joomla Force SSL + Virtuemart NOT working

[lupo]

Hello,

I would like to use my web site with SSL only, but if I activate in Joomla Administrator Configuration Force SSL=Entire site I have problems with all Virtuemart pages except the cart page - all virtuemart pages are redirecting to http instead of the right https and the entire web site is going to a SSL <-> non SSL loop.

As you know, recently Google officially confirmed that SSL only web sites is a + for SEO, and because of that I need some working solution in order to use my entire site with SSL only.

Joomla 2.5.20
Virtuemart 2.0.26d

[GJC Web Design]

For a start I wouldn't start with an out of date VM & Joomla-

probably will have no effect but I don't think Google will give a + for defaced sites...   

[lupo]

thank you very much for this posting ... but if someone can give a specific answer to the presented problem would be really helpful

[jjk]

I'm not shure if the eventual small effect (less than 1 percent) of ranking factors would compensate the loss of PageRank due to the added 301 redirects and slightly lower page load times with SSL enabled for the complete site. However, VirtueMart 2.0.26d has no problem with 'Force SSL'. Just tested it on a live VM 2.0.26d shop.
Also, VM uses relative urls for the canonical url, so that works nicely with/without SSL, too.

If it doesn't work for you, I suppose your SSL setup is not complete. You need an SSL certificate installed and configured for your domain and you also need a dedicated IP address.

[lupo]

I'm not shure if the eventual small effect (less than 1 percent) of ranking factors would compensate the loss of PageRank due to the added 301 redirects and slightly lower page load times with SSL enabled for the complete site. However, VirtueMart 2.0.26d has no problem with 'Force SSL'. Just tested it on a live VM 2.0.26d shop.
Also, VM uses relative urls for the canonical url, so that works nicely with/without SSL, too.

If it doesn't work for you, I suppose your SSL setup is not complete. You need an SSL certificate installed and configured for your domain and you also need a dedicated IP address.

jjk Thank you!

You are absolutely right VirtueMart 2.0.26d is working just perfect with $force_ssl = '2';

The problem was in a plugin which I installed recently.
After your valuable info I copied my site to a test site / db and started one by one to uninstall the installed components and plugins ... unfortunately the problem was in the ... last Joomla plugin which I uninstalled ...
after that the problem Joomla Force SSL + Virtuemart was gone .... 

The problems was from "VP One Page Checkout for VirtueMart" plugin version 2.4 (last update on Aug 16, 2014)
http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/extension-specific/virtuemart-extensions/virtuemart-orders/25503

My opinion is that this plugin is the best one page checkout plugin for VirtueMart, you can test it here, but without Joomla Force SSL because I have reported the bug today to the developers and I'm waiting for a update

P.S. Wow I have checked all the options in this plugin and actually have found the "problem" ...
The plugin had in it's advanced options this "Disable SSL for Non Cart VM Pages" which is activated by default
Thanks again for the support and helping me to find a solution for this serious for me problem.

[jjk]

I was just going to add, that I recently did help a VM shop owner to install that template/OPC on his site using VM 2.6.6 and had no problems with SSL.

[Jumbo!]

Go to VP One Page Checkout plugin settings and disable the option called "Disable SSL for Non Cart VM Pages" under advanced options. You must disable this option if you are using SSL for the entire site.